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Continental Unity 



AN ADDRESS 



W. H. H. Murray, 



DKLIVEI.KD IN 



MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, BY INVITATION OF PROMI- 
NENT CITIZENS, DaCEMBER 13, 1888. 



SE3COND ICI>ia?ION. 



BOSTON : 

C. W. CALKINS & CO., PRINTERS, 52 PURCHASE STREET. 

1888. 



COPTBIGHTED, 1888, Bf W. H. H. MURBAT. 




Class pLiA-Sl. 

Book ilil 



Copyright N^_ 



CcHi., z 






COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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CONTINENTAL UNITY. 



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AK ADDRESS 






lAM 8 1889 y^. 



W. H. H. MURRAY. 



The following correspondence makes a natural 

preface to this address. 

Boston, Nov. 22, 1888. 
W. H. H. Murray — Dear Sir : Knowing that you have devoted 
many years to the study of the geography, resources and history of 
Canada, and have doubtless formed opinions touching the union 
of that country with ours, we, the undersigned, invite you to de- 
livei- an address to the citizens of Boston on the general subject 
of our international relations at your earliest convenience. If you 
can comply with our request we feel that you will make a valuable 
contribution to public thought, as well as give pleasure to the 
many who would be delighted to hear you. 

Pending your decision, a committee have secured the refusal 
of Music Hall for the evening of Dec. 13, and we trust you may 
be able to accept that date for the address. We beg also to state 
that, while the committee will reserve a certain number of seats 
for invited guests, no fee will be cbarged for the opportunity of 
hearing you speak upon this theme, but that the auditorium will 
be free to all. — Oliver Ames, Alexander H. Rice, Eben D. Jordan, 
Henry D. Hyde, Albert A. Pope, H. M. "Whitney, Irving A. 
Evans, Asa P. Potter, JohnC. Paige, John Shepard, W. S. Eaton. 
William Claflin, A. P. Martin, Thomas Mack, B. E. Dutton, 
Charles E. Powers, Arnold A. Rand, Walter M. Brackett, John 
M. Corse, Isaac T. Burr, Jacob Bates, John Boyle O'Reilly, 
George W. Armstrong. 

Parker House, Nov. 23, 1888. 
Gentlemen : Your invitation to address the citizens of Boston 
in Music Hall, Dec. 13, evening, on the general subject of the 
union of Canada and the United States, is received. I beg to say 
in reply that I accept your cordially-worded invitation with 
pleasure, and you may announce that I will speak under your 
auspices on that date. My subject will be "Continental Unity " 

Respectfully yours, 

W. H. H. Murray. 

In fulfillment of the above engagement, Mr. 
Murray delivered the following address : 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

The question I would discuss to-night, ladies 
and gentlemen, is one of Empire. I am no politi- 
cian. I am simply, in a modest way, a student of 
public questions such as interest thinking men, who, 
born on this continent and in love with free institu- 
tions, seek to forecast the future of it and of the 
millions destined soon to people it from ocean to 
ocean and from TsTorthern to Southern gulf. I have 
no connection with any political party either in this 
country or in Canada, nor have I wish to form any. 
What I have to say is unprompted by any. Of my 
own thought and wish I speak, and only suggest- 
ively. jSTo good can come to me from speaking, save 
your approbation, — the approbation of you Avho have 
minds and think, — and the feeling that in some small 
degree I have served the public interests. My 
thought is ofiered as contribution to your thought. 
Only so and nothing more. You are the jury. I 
only present the case as it stands out before my mind 
and centered in my judgment. I do not aim in 
what I say to produce immediate results. Out of the 
bulk and drift of affairs I translate a message to in- 
telligence. I voice the prophecy of Geography, of 
common blood and language, kindred institutions, 
like laws, commercial necessities and political institu- 
tions that are identical. That is all. With plain 
object, worthy purpose, a noble hope, and in simple, 
straightforward speech, I will say what has been 
given me out of my wish to help the great cause on 



2 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

and go my way. If, when done, you shall say each 
to the other, on the morrow, the man spoke truth, 
his thought is right, his judgment sound, his vision 
of the future clear, I shall be content. If j^ou say 
the other thing, I shall regret the verdict, but go my 
way, grateful to you for audience all-the same. 

Where the first civilization of the world began, 
or when, we know not. Once we said, Greece. Later 
on we said, Egypt, And now all scholars say, beyond 
Egypt, somewhere. For Egypt evidently was a col- 
ony and brought all her wonderful arts with her in 
ships, from some mother country, whose seat of 
empire is forever lost from memory of men. But 
while the origin of civilization is hidden, the course 
and movement of it for many years are known. Out 
of the far East it came. From Egypt and Asia to 
Greece and Rome, thence across Europe and the 
British Isles, and so across ocean, like a fruitful seed 
blown over water, and lodged on this Western shore 
and world. Thus much we know as we laiow a sure 
thing. Here, in the soil of this Western world of 
ours, that seed took root, grew upward and abroad, 
until our civil institutions, our commerce, our inven- 
tions, our development in wealth and numbers, and 
even our arts and literature, are the wonder of the 
old world that mothered us. France, with eight 
hundred years of growth has forty millions of inhab- 
itants. At that point nature has fixed her limit. Her 
geograph}^ can accommodate no more. Germany, 
circling all her blood Avithin Imperial authority, 
holds forty millions, and is full to the brim. Eng- 
land, Scotland, Ireland and Wales have thirty-five 
millions, and out of them, as water from full fountain, 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 3 

the Saxon blood flows steadily over all the world, but 
chiefly this way. The cradles of all these nations 
are only feeders that swell the census of this Conti- 
nent. Even marriage there, fruitful beyond two 
births, is in the interest of our census tables. This 
is the law and fact of the case as it now stands ; nor 
is there chance of change. Immigration, like water, 
obeys the law of inclination. The incline of this 
modern movement in the world's population to- 
day slopes this way. This continent is the reservoir 
toward which all these streams flow. The channels 
are formed, the flowage already strong, and toward 
us the countless individual drops must needs come. 

Here then we stand, already seventy millions of 
Saxon, Celtic and German blood — the three bloods 
which I'ule the world to-day and will rule it for a 
thousand years — upon this Continent, lying as a 
whole, a geographical unit, as it does, between two 
oceans and two gulfs, and the spectacle it ]H'eseiits 
is intensely interrogative. The question is searching 
and solemn enough to edge the dullest intellect, and 
make even a fool think. 

Look at the conditions of the problem. Seventy 
miUions already here. The overflow of all Europe 
and England coming and bound to come year after 
year. The increase by generation enormous, as is 
natural where men and wt)men are well clothed, well 
fed, well housed, guarded by law, and unchecked by 
war or flunine. Grant a vigorous stock, good soil, 
healthy climate, cheap fuel, and peaceful years, and 
population is sure to multiply beyond historic prece- 
dent; for the conditions which favor such increase 
are unprecedented. iNever before, in historic times, 



4 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

has a single people lived under such conditions. 
Here the race comes to new conditions, and a new 
regime begins. Here war, famine, tyranny do not 
press, and the unchoked fountain of reproduction and 
increase, under benignant sides, flows unchecked its 
steady and steadily increasing stream. To-day we 
are 70,000,000. In 1950, 140,000,000. In 2000, 200,- 
000,000, and when the pen writes the census of the 
fifth century of civilization on this Continent, the 
monstrous sum will tabulate 500,000,000. 

This seems to some of you extravagant? Yery 
well; give me your minds a moment. The Saxon 
land, across the sea, is full; but the Saxon blood has 
not lost reproductive vigor, has it? England alone 
could people the world in ten centuries, give it the 
world to people and absence of war. If the State of 
Illinois was populated as densely as England and 
"Wales, there would be 26,000,000 of people within 
her borders. Is there a single reason existent in 
nature or government why she should not be? 
Canada has a section in her west, out of which ten 
States as large as Illinois can be carved. And in all 
this vast stretch of land, the soil is of the richest, 
fuel abundant, stored in old geologic ages but a few 
feet under prairie sod, and the climate as healthy 
and bracing as children were ever born and grown 
in. Ten Illinois on our side that fool's line now 
dividing us, and ten on this side, populated as Eng- 
land and Wales are to-day, and you have a total of 
520,000,000, — equal to one-third of the human race, 
as now computed to be living on this rounded globe. 

You say, " It cannot be ! It is too monstrous ! " 
I say it will be. Sure as wheat gi-ows wheat, or 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 5 

human mating under favorable conditions of love 
and life begets children. Famine can stop human 
births. But no sane man would foretell famine to 
this Continent, stretching, as it does, through many 
zones and sweeping from sea to sea. Wars, repeated 
often, prolonged and waged with old-time destruc- 
tiveness, can decimate a population. But he would 
be mad who should prophesy a return on this Conti- 
nent, within 200 years, by a race instinctively com- 
mercial, and in a commercial age, to the worst form 
of old-time barbarism. I know well that human 
weakness is not dead; that passion still heats blood; 
that selfishness, prolific of injustice, still lives on, 
and hence wars may come again. But not one can 
well be fiercer, bloodier or more prolonged than that 
which we of the States but recently passed through. 
But did that stop our growth, wipe out our accumu- 
lated wealth, or prevent children being born? IS'o! 
The graves were many, and grew fast, but cradles 
were more, and multiplied faster yet, and under four 
long years of bloody rain motherhood was safely 
sheltered, ' and the roar of a million men fiercely 
battling could not drown the cradle songs that rose 
clear and sweet as larks singing in the dewy air to 
the blue rim of heaven. 

The Chinese have no census. Their Eastern habit 
or superstition forbids. And so there are no figures 
to guide us as to the monstrous total. But all agree 
that China has at least 300,000,000 of men, women 
and children within her borders. Why not more? 
Look at the measured map and find answer. There 
is not room for more. Her geography forbids it. 
Time and again has her living increase, like green 



6 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

grass, grown to the edge of the possible, and there 
touched starvation, and withered as under fire. Take 
China from shore Hne to northern range and place 
it at the centre of this Continent and smooth it 
down and see how much it covers and what is left. 
And will any thoughtful person say that human 
increase, in the long years to come, shall not be here, 
even as it has been there, only three-fold more abun- 
dant? He cannot. Our 70,000,000 are only so many 
living roots struck into growthful soil, whose up- 
springing and outbranching, under the laws of God 
and man's just government, shall shadow the land 
from sea to sea with flowering, fruitful, happy human 
life. Within two centuries the Continent will be 
peopled from snow line to coral reefs, from Prince 
Edward's Island to Yancouver, and all the air within 
these 2^oints under heaven's dome will roar like the 
hollow hive when flowers are plenty and bees busy. 

Now, look at the map. Wipe out that fool's line 
drawn by two foreign nations who had no right to 
make a line of division here save that of conquest, 
bein^ alien to the soil which is to us fatherland, and 
drawn, too, when on them and us had not yet dawned 
the vision of an empire, beside which the Persian 
and the Roman world when it stood at its widest is 
but a unit by which to multiply our measurement. 
Look at the rivers. See how they run. Note how 
they tie North and South together like threads into 
whose golden strands new strength is spun continu- 
ally. Must not the empire, Avhich holds the great 
lakes and the productive centre of the Continent, 
hold also the mouth of the two great rivers, flowing 
from this centre, north and south, toward the two 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 7 

great gulfs into which they empty? Shall not the 
time come, when, by the skill of men assisting these 
noble water courses, ships of five thousand tons shall 
steam from Liverpool, steer straight west to Labra- 
dor, and still westward until they moor at Chicago 
wharves without breaking freight, and thence, re- 
loaded, go downward to the Southern (uilf, and so 
command the commerce of all ports through every 
parallel of latitude in shortest, quickest, easiest 
voyagings? Is not this the logic of their size, 
their direction and the union of their springs at 
the cereal centre of the world? Look at the Lakes. 
Memphramagog, Champlain, the Horicon, Erie, 
Huron, Michigan, Ontario, Superior, where are they 
placed and where do they empty to the salt sea? You 
might as well tie knots in the red arteries midway 
between heart and hands, l>etween vital centre and 
extremities of the human body, as draw a line of 
stoppage across these natural channels of popular 
communication and commercial exchanges. Listen 
to the testimony of the Plains, that seamless robe of 
unity which some politicians would scissor through, 
and of a lovely whole, woven of God, make two 
ravelled edges. What sound reason is there for such 
dismemberment; such dislocation of natural mem- 
bers; such absurd partition of a noble whole? If it 
must needs be, what a pity it must be. For never 
did man see a lovlier evidence of God's design and 
:N'ature's unity, than stretches, green as a sleeping 
sea, from Southern Gulf to the white line of northern 
snow, making in itself a prairie empire that would 
feed half the world. Consider also the law which 
2:overns commerce and decides the volume and direc- 



8 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

tion of exchanges. The movements of commerce 
are along parallels and across zones of different 
clhnates always. The I^orth has what the South 
lacks, and the South is wasteful of what the I^orth 
lavishes gold for. This mutual want and fulness is 
mother of trade and of those thrifty exchanges 
which bring wealth to traders. Commerce is as the 
two Adams in Scripture. One is of the earth, earthy; 
the other is of heaven, heavenly. In its nobler phase 
and ultimate end, commerce is fraternization of the 
peoples of the world; the bringing of them into 
imity by first bringing them into base contact. From 
lower they work up to higher. Chasing a dollar, they 
run into heaven unawares. And any line which, 
being drawn, checks freest commerce, checks the fra- 
ternization of men, and thereby thwarts the end of 
empire, which has this for its noblest object: the 
bringing of men together in gainful trade, that they 
may learn the sweet lesson that Brotherhood is great- 
est profit and so through commerce grow fraternal. 

This great question of continental unity has a his- 
tory. Let me remind you of it. 

France in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries 
reached, in the splendor of her conceptions and the 
vigor of her conduct, the acme of her development. 
Her sun was at its zenith, and its heat and light went 
round the world. In those three hundred years 
French character was thoroughly masculine. It was 
hot with fiery zeal ; haughtily courageous and ridged 
with muscular endurance. It conceived great plans. 
It executed them greatly. It pushed its explorations 
into every zone, and sailed with noble seamanship 
the parallels of the world. In one hand her children 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 9 

lifted the Cross, and in the other bore the bag of gain 
to the farthest line of known geography and beyond. 
In this magnificent exhibit of character the women 
of Old France vied with the men, and her woman- 
hood with her manhood shone resplendent, like equal 
and companion orbs, full sphered. The men and 
Avomen who settled ISTew France were of the noblest 
of the human species. They grasped the significance 
of Empire, and while Voltaire sneered, they with 
sublime ambition essayed to capture a hemisphere for 
Christ and France. From that great rock at Quebec 
they saw the measureless capabilities of this Conti- 
nent; saw it as a magnificent unit, which, if kept 
whole, would in future years outweigh in power and 
value the manifold partitions of all Europe, While 
the Dutch at Albany were only petty traders, the 
Spaniards of the Gulf religious buccaneers, and the 
Puritans in Massachusetts seeking protection of their 
conscience in isolation from oppression, they said: 
" We will lay foundations for a power that shall rule 
from ocean to ocean and from gulf to gulf, and own 
all." They saw that the Spanish had no lasting 
power in them; that they held only the southern 
edges of the Continent, and that their fingei's were 
slipping and would soon lose hold. The English, 
bunched at a few spots on the Atlantic seaboard, 
heterogeneous and naturally jealous, pent eastward 
by the Alleghany range, they would at the j^roper 
time push into the sea. They filled all the East with 
Indian al fiances. La Salle went southward to the 
Southern Gulf. The Yerendrye, father and sons, 
pushed westward along what now is the line of the 
Canadian Pacific to the Rocky Mountains. Whei - 



10 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

ever they went they made alhes of the red men; 
missionized them, hunted and intermarried with them, 
did everything but fight them. Then they turned 
southward to sweep the Dutch and EngHsh down 
the Hudson and off Manhattan Island, and ran against 
the Mohawks and were stopped. It is scarcely too 
much to say that if Champlain, blundering on before 
he knew Indian politics or power, had not shot the 
Mokawk chiefs on Lake Champlain, and thereby won 
for France the bitter hatred of the Five ]S^ations, the 
whole destiny of the Continent had been changed 
and the current of American history would have 
flowed in other channels than it fills to-day. But 
however this may be, one thing is clear: that the old- 
time French, those great captains whether of king or 
Christ, never dreamed of allowing this Continent to 
be partitioned into two or three separate countries, 
thus doing violence to its geography and productive 
wholeness, including in its harvest circle every fruit, 
vegetable and cereal needed by man, but prayed, 
fought, bled, and suffered toil and torture to place it 
under one flag and power in the splendor of its 
integral vastness. 

Changes came. The Pompadour ruled the court. 
Power in high places across the sea rotted into 
stench. Voltaire sneered like a caustic fool at a 
geographical Empire too vast, and a faith too high, 
for him to understand. Yirtue went out of France. 
Yices came in. The Bigots of Old France came 
hither, and as the ])eople of Quebec starved, they held 
orgies and drank the nation's blood in Avassail. The 
eagle's eye, the eagle's strength of wing, the eagle's 
power to swoop and strike, left the French blood 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 11 

trickling its last drops downward from Montcalm's 
heart as, stricken on the plains of Abraham, he rode 
drooping to the pommel of his saddle through the 
St. Louis gate to die. The red cross of St. George 
went up over Cape Diamond, and the lily banner that 
first waved civilization to this Continent went down 
forever. 

But though the flag came down, the daring 
thought and high dream held sway. If France 
failed, England should not win. The Continent 
should be kept whole. If the old flag could not 
keep it, then a new one should. The northern col- 
ony joining the thirteen southern ones would make 
common cause, and under a new banner, native, 
American, continental, should hold the land from sea 
to sea, fi'om gulf to gulf. Under another symbol 
and a new nationality the old French dream, the 
dream of soldier and Jf priest, should be realized in 
spite of all at last. 

Then did the church make great mistake, — a 
mistake which cost the Papacy the noblest chance it 
ever had since Peter held the golden keys. The 
possibilities of Empire, such as Home, as Greece, as 
Alexandria and Jerusalem when they stood highest 
in the world, thrown into one, could not have 
matched in jnen, in gold, in armed power, in that 
commercial energy and that traveling habit, which, 
rightly shaped, guided, inspired, held to one pur- 
pose, could in one century missionize the world; 
that Empire which Cardinal McGibbons sees to-day, 
destined to soon be fuller of resources, material and 
spiritual, than men ever saw since earth's first morn- 
ing, and peopled with a full third of the population 



l2 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

of the globe. The church, lacking eyes to see far 
on; timid, content with a sure little thing, made bar- 
gain with the British Parliament, and Canada lost 
the swift progress of a hundred years. From that 
moment, instead of being a noble, controlling part of 
a majestic whole, with all her natural connections in- 
tact, her normal communications open, her system 
receptive to all invigorations which quicken, inspire, 
and expand independent commonwealths, she became 
only a foreign and banished fragment of the Conti- 
nent to which she belonged as an integral and noble 
part; a colony of a foreign power, drawing the sap 
to feed her vitality laboriously from a far distance or 
through imperfect conduits from the continental cen- 
tres, subject to artificial pressures and frequent stop- 
pages. Left to political and commercial influences 
in 1774, Canada would have joined with her sister 
colonies, shared the struggle for nationality with 
them, with them won victory and shared the progress 
of the last hundred years, which is the marvel of all 
the world. 

Be it remembered, then, by you all, that Cana- 
dians are such by accident of war, but to me and 
to all scholars they are American by right of 
birth, born in the same great land with us of the 
States; standing not as foreigners, but brothers born 
with us, who would share with them the glorious des- 
tiny of coming centuries. This movement of theirs 
toward us, and of ours toward them, is no new 
one, but the old-time one, long checked by artificial 
pressure, now breaking out of bonds and running 
free as the heart's wish when it runs along the line 
of God's ordainment. It is no new dream, but the 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 13 

old sublime dream which priest and soldier of old 
France dreamed at Quebec in the sixteenth centuiy, 
now dreamed anew by us who have come to that 
point of time mentioned in our sacred books when 
our " Young men shall see visions and our old men 
shall dream dreams." We of whitened heads dream 
the dream, but you younger men of fewer years 
shall live to see that dream fulfilled in vision, seen 
of all, a continental empire of which Canadians are 
a noble and essential part, stretcliing from sea to sea, 
and of which to be citizen shall be greater than to 
be king. 

Listen to this and consider. There are three ages 
or regimes — two of which have been realized in his- 
tory and the other is now here. The first is the 
military age. In it, men are born for the sword and 
by it die. He who is gifted to make combinations of 
men and movements that kill quickest and most is 
chiefest over all. Among all men, whatever name 
he takes, he stands highest. Such was Alexander, 
such Csesar, such Hannibal and Scipio, such Frederick 
and Marlboro' and IS^apoleon. Under such a regime 
men are only fighting animals. Their power to strike 
and kill gives them their value. Policies are shaped 
for battles. There is no glory but that of war. The 
increase of the Lord's earth is fed to armies, and 
cradles of male children are rocked to fill bloody 
graves. 

The second regime is the Ecclesiastic. It is both 
better and worse than the first. I will not ehai-ac- 
terize it. You are intelligent and knoAV what it is. 
In it all is done for what men call religion. All ma- 



14 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

terial interests are made subordinate to what is 
called the spiritual. At court, in salon, in street, in 
school, in college, in village field, the priest is all in 
all. The altar blesses the harvester, and eats the 
harvest. 

Very well. !N^ow, friends, this is not a military 
age, nor an ecclesiastic age. It is a commercial 
age, and on this Continent wholly so. We of 
the States number seventy millions, with an army 
less than twenty-five thousand troops. One soldier 
to three thousand citizens. That is all. Our navy 
is composed of forty old tubs, not half of which will 
float. Our harbors are protected, not by forts, but by 
a peaceful policy and the moral impression which the 
millions of people living back of them make on the 
world. We can fight, but we prefer to trade. We 
sooner swap products than lives with other nations. 
During our late unpleasantness a long-shanked 
lumberman from Maine and a tall sallow-faced 
Alabamian were on the picket line. Each was stand- 
ing back of a tree with rifle cocked. Had either 
showed the button of his fatigue cap beyond the bark 
he would have lost it. At last the Alabamian called, 
" I say, Yank, which would you rather do, shoot or 
whittle?" "Whittle, by Gosh!" exclaimed the 
Downeaster, and in a moment the two sharpshooters 
were seated opposite each other on two logs, whittling 
and swapping stories. As a nation we are like the 
Downeaster. We can shoot, but we " rather whittle." 
The commercial instinct is now a matter of birth. 
We breed it. Our young men care little for gold 
lace and straps and gilded epaulets. They like gold 
in their pockets; gold put into house and lands, 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 15 

stocks and bonds, books and pictures, free libraries, 
and nniversity endowments. What we are proud of 
is not big armies, big navies, big ships of war, big 
battles and big victories ; but big trade, big profits, 
big harvests, big cities, big inventions, big commer- 
cial ventures, and a big census, which doubles up the 
millions of happy, prosperous citizenship every 
twenty years. Our politics are not ideal; our 
administration of government not perfect; our con- 
gressional action hurtfully affected by partisanship; 
and much might be found to satirize in our manage- 
ment of public affairs; but through all the mass of a 
great nation's doing and thinldng; through all the 
teachings of the press, platform and pulpit; and 
through all the blundering of Congressional action, 
runs, clearly visible, like a thread of gold in coarse 
black cloth, the noble purpose to serve the people, 
make them secure in all their rights, and prosperous 
in all their honest undertakings. Schemes of con- 
quest are never debated in our Congress. "Warlike 
alliances are not made. A standing army is an 
unthought-of thing. Church extension is not 
regarded as connected with politics. Titles and 
strips of ribbons laughed at as ridiculous, in the eyes 
of sensible men, and the only throne fit to aspire to 
is that high eminence builded on ten millions of 
free ballots. 

Such is the type of empire which we of the 
United States — we who have developed from the 
thirteen English Colonies which revolted from the 
mother country — are building up on the basis of 
popular suffrage, the wish and wisdom of the people 
expressed in ballots; and our Canadian neighbors, 



16 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

who represent the fourteenth colony which remained 
held by artificial causes, as I have exjolained, in 
English connection, have developed, as far as they 
have gone and grown, along the same line, and must 
continue so to do, in the future. They are not 
military by wish or habit any more than are we. 
Their civilization is as ours is, industrial and com- 
mercial, not warlike. Pohtically they are as demo- 
cratic as are we. They seek the profits of peaceful 
trade and commercial connections, not the false 
glory of war. The innnigrant does not come here or 
go there to fight, but to work. He seeks wages, not 
soldier's pittance; wealth, not military fame; the 
right to vote, — to say who shall rule over him and 
along what line of policy they shall rule — not the 
chance of winning medal for his breast and garter 
for his leg. These are facts; standing high and 
luminous over daily doings, as a lighted beacon over 
sea, and they give emphasis to the statement, that 
not only is the Continent geographically a unit, but 
the people living on it are united in the purpose of 
their lives, the object of their action, and the hopes 
which stimulate activity. 

The progress of these United States is a marvel 
to the world. The history of it reads like an Arabian 
tale. Such increase of population; such accumula- 
tion of wealth; such popularization of knowledge; 
such development of the inventive faculties; such 
intense activity in peaceful directions and for peace- 
ful objects, were never seen on earth before. The 
causes of this wonderful growth are many, but the 
chiefest of all is seldom mentioned. It is not vast 
extent of virgin soil rich in productive elements, 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 17 

nor Is it immigration, nor long periods of peace, nor 
absence of large standing armies which eat up the 
countiy, and multiply taxes, burdensome to all forms 
of industr}^; nor free institutions, which dignify the 
individual, and make the masses intelligent and con- 
tent. JSTo ! There is another and the chiefest cause, 
without which in full operation all other ones were 
vain; and this prime cause of American prosperity 
is this : The free interchange of products and com- 
modities between all sections of the country. This 
is the vital force which, in this country, has quickened 
all other forces, kept the whole body j^olitic in glow- 
ing health ; stimulated all grovv^th, and charged the 
veins of our vast industrial organism Avith vitalizing 
vigor. [Nineteen-twentieths of all our commerce is 
interstate commerce. Only one twentieth goes 
abroad. Free trade, absolutely free, without let or 
hindrance, untaxed, unvexed by custom restrictions, 
unchecked by Governmental interference at any point 
within our vast domains, has given to every branch 
of business, to every form of industry, to every 
species of enterprise, the phenomenal development 
which, in the tremendous aggregate of results, total- 
izes a summation that astounds the world and makes 
a demonstration, against which all argument is 
puerile. Because of this all parts have grovfn with 
the growth of the whole, the whole been prospered 
with the prosperity of the parts ; each note being full 
and clearly sounded, joined in harmonious connection 
with all other ones, has swelled the volume to a 
perfect anthem whose waves of concordant sounds 
roll round the world. IVhat would :N"ew England 
have been shut off by a line of custom houses from 



18 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

the west? What the west barred by restrictions from 
the sea-ports? What any state or section had the 
free passage of her products been choked at one or 
more imaginary lines? How then conld natural 
resources have been utilized; individual ambitions 
found profitable scope, or the energies of the people, 
as a whole, been grouped and made forceful, in happy 
combinations? They could not. All would have 
suffered and been oppressed by conditions both 
onerous and depressing. What Canadians have 
suffered under and still endure, would have been felt 
through every part of the Union, and all growth, 
instead of being swift and sure, would have been 
slow, and slowly reached and made ; at many points 
altogether impossible. These facts are patent to all 
at the mention of them, and the conclusion they 
compel, imperative and conclusive. 

The slow growth of the northern section of the 
Continent compared with the southern one is due not 
to lack of energy, or thrift, or individual ability and 
ambition, but to the fact that commercially it has 
been fettered by wrong connections or non-connec- 
tion with the great whole of which by nature and 
by reason it is and must be an organic part. Placed 
as it has been, it has been fatally handicapped in the 
race with other sections of the continent. Money 
would not come; skill would not come; enterprise, 
audacious in risking and by its audacity winning, 
would not come to it. The fate of colonies has been 
its fate. It has been a feeder to England; nothing 
more. The money which she sent did not come to 
stay. It earned itself double and then went home, 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 19 

lea\-ing the country stripped. It has striven to make 
Liverpool as near as Boston, London as 'New York, 
and it has failed. The blame is not on the Canadian 
people up to this, but on those who blundered in 1774. 
Then they were bargained for and sold for a price. 

There is a phrase which is sometimes used with a 
good deal of emphasis on the other side of the line, 
in which the speaker vents his intense colonialism by 
asserting that " Canada don't propose to be swallowed 
by the States." This politico-gastronomic assertion 
is surely not very vi^itty, and evidently lacks the prime 
element of force — application to the subject. For 
no swallowing process has been suggested by ' any 
responsible party on either side of the line. There 
is no reason to think that should Canada, by a popular 
vote, seek membership in the Union, that a vote of 
the States could to-day be secured for her admission. 
The noble extent of her pubhc domain, the great 
undeveloped wealth of her natural resources, the 
vast benefit which would accrue to the Union from 
her admission, are not understood or appreciated in 
this country. To the average voter among us her 
geography is as little known as that of the Russian 
Empire. He has no knowledge and no special desire 
to obtain knowledge about it. Busy in our own 
affairs, we have given no earnest thought to the 
matter. 

Then, too, there is among our citizens a senti- 
ment — and I judge it to be a very strong sentiment 
— against any farther extension of the boundaries 
and responsibilities of the Republic. Whoever has 
given time to study the actual state of the country 
is impressed with the fact that its geographical 



20 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

extent is at least a centuiy ahead of our present pop- 
ulation — probably two centuries. Two hundred years 
must pass before the increase of our population will 
feel the least pressure from any lack of room. JSTeither 
will our mineral deposits be fully opened, or our vast 
acreage ])lowed before then. We have all climates 
known to temperate zones, and all products in our 
control already. Our sea-coast is like that of a hemi- 
sphere, and all the river mouths of any importance 
to commerce, save one, are in our hands as things 
are now. We have enough, it is said; why seek 
moi^e ? 

Then, too, Canada's del)t is large, and stands for 
nothing adequate in the eyes of many among us. It 
is a large debt for 5,000,000 of people to carry with 
such an undeveloped country as they have to carry 
it with. AYe of the States do not love national debts. 
We shall soon have ours wiped out to the last dolhir. 
Our taxes will be as a cipher, and her 5,000,000 
heavily-taxed will be living side by side with 75,000,- 
000 of untaxed people. 

For these three reasons, lack of knowledge and 
appreciation of Canada's resources as a section of the 
Continent, a strong and growing sentiment against 
farther territorial extension, and a feeling that her 
national debt is bigger than her national assets, 
there is little feeling to-day in this country favorable 
to her annexation. That such a feeling would exist 
if the people knew all the facts of the case I do not 
doubt; but as it is, I beg my red-faced friends to 
understand that there is no danger of Canada being 
" swallowed " by the States. If she ever is admitted 
to the Union, she will be admitted only at her own 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 21 

earnest asking, and because the people of both conn- 
tries, by ten years of observation and study of the 
facts of the case, are convinced that such a union is 
inevitable, and sure to result in great good to all con- 
cerned. 

But it is said in some quarters, and by some 
it is shouted forth as if it ended the discussion, 
that " English sentiment " forbids union of Canada 
with the States. Indeed, the very noise made over 
this assertion is suspicious. It sounds very like a 
gun heavily charged with powder without a bullet in 
it. It makes, at discharge, only a hollow roar — a 
dreadful roar, but that is all ! Let us translate this 
vociferation into calm statement, put it into sensible 
shape, so sensible men, seeking after the truth in this 
discussion, can get at it and measure it and see how 
much it actually ref)resents and stands for in this 
vital problem of future connection. 

Translated to statement, then, this " English 
sentiment" assertion means this: That there is in 
Canada, and among the whole body of Canada's 
inhabitants, such an intense and pei'sonal love for 
England, English connection, and the English flag, 
that they would not tolerate any other connection, 
no matter what commercial and political advantages 
it might bring, even with the kindred banner of the 
States. 

Very well. ^Now, friends, such a statement is true 
or it isn't true. If it is true, it ends discussion and 
fixes their fate. If it isn't true, it leaves the future 
open for reason and judgment to decide what it shall 
be, in the interests of those now living and of their 
children after them. Let us see which. 



22 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

The population of Canada is 5,000,000. Of this 
number 1 ,500,000 are of pure French descent, un- 
mixed with cross of EngUsh blood. The English 
and French bloods have never mingled in happy 
union and never will. They are too unlike. The 
Gaul and Briton never could agree. They have 
never loved each other and never can. They hate 
more readily. 

Cressy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Waterloo, and the 
Plains of Abraham emphasize the antagonism of the 
bloods. Five hundred years of vicinage and five 
hundred years of war between two races mean 
something. Surely he would be laughed at who 
should assert before an audience, that on God's earth 
there is a body of 1,500,000 pure-blooded French- 
men who love the English flag so intensely that they 
could not possibly live under that neighboring one, 
to lift the standard and set the stars in which their 
ancestors fought and bled with the Continentals 
under Washington at Yorktown. Yery well. From 
the 5,000,000 we will subtract 1,500,000, and say with 
Joseph Jefferson in the play, "they don't count! " 

JSTow come the Germans, recent immigrants to her 
shores, 300,000 strong. When and whence, pray, 
have these gotten so suddenly this passion for the 
English flag? Have they a charm hung over Anti- 
costi, so potent in its working that when the sons 
and daughters of the Old German race sail under it 
their blood is changed by its magic, so that they 
forget their dear Fader-land and become on the 
instant intensely English? 

Again. Among the Canadians are the Irish — a 
million strong. One out of every four of them 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 23 

remembers Ireland and her wrong-s. When have the 

-r- . ^ 

Irish, driven out of Ireland by English neglect and 
cruelty, loved England so that it would break their 
honest hearts to see the red flag come down, and 
the banner of that republic which for their race has 
been a refuge from hunger and from tyranny rise in 
splendor above their heads? 

The Scotch among them number 250,000, and 
they love thrift, are commercial in their instinct — the 
natural Yankees of the British Isles — and fit as nat- 
urally to 'New York, Boston and Chicago as they do 
to London or Liverpool. Then, there are of In- 
dians and of various other foreign races 250,000. 
So then the census brings us down to this bare total. 
The population of Canada amounts, all told, to 
5,000,000. Of this number 4,300,000, are non-Eng- 
lish in blood and habit of thought; and of English 
stock, only 700,000 are left. 

But these even are by no nieans " intensely Eng- 
lish " in their sentiment, so that they could not toler- 
ate union with the States. For they are for the most 
part Canadian-born, and therefore, in habit of life and 
thought, of this Continent and not of England. The 
older ones represent the English colonial spirit, and 
cling to the old land, as is honorable for them to do. 
But he who is born here is not of England, but of 
America. He is child of a Continent, not of a little 
island, and the love of the Continent, the pride of it, 
and all the hopes, ambitions and dreams his great 
birthright engenders is in him, warm and strong. 
He loves England as all of us of English descent love 
her — as the old mother-land and blood-center of us 
all, but not as his native land. His native land is 



24: CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

not a colonial fragment of a widely-scattered, weakly- 
connected Empire, but a noble part of a vast Conti- 
nental Sovereignt}'^, whose parts find natural adjust- 
ments, cemented with quick exchanges of mutual 
profit, common in language, liberty and faith, held in 
natural oneness by circling seas that bound the four 
horizons, destined to be so populous, rich and potent 
in the world that the little Mother Isle will soon be 
place of pilgrimage and not of central power, where 
the mightiest race on earth, or that earth ever knew, 
shall find shrine to reverence and not throne to sway. 

In view, therefore, of the facts of the case, I see 
no grounds whatever that this great movement 
toward Continental Unity, the beginning of which we 
happily see, can be long stayed or hindered greatly 
by this so-called " Enghsh sentiment " in Canada, of 
which we hear so much and loudly in certain quar- 
ters. 

The notion, advanced by some, that England will 
oppose such union as this of which we speak, is not 
grounded in reason ; the explanation being found in 
the fact that she has no interest to do so. England is 
nearer the United States to-day in many essential 
elements of unity than she is to Canada. Trade rules 
to-day, and he who buys most of England's people 
gets nearest to their hearts. This not from merce- 
nary reasons only, but from the higher uses and the 
nobler influences of traffic; for all exchanges of 
products and commodities among men tend toward 
brotherhood. Trade honorably conducted means in 
the end fraternization. The coin of trade becomes 
ultimately coin of God. Human wants establish 
human brotherhood. Traffic is the universal Ian- 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 25 

g'Liage of huiiian coram mii cation. All nations road 
and speak that tongue at sight. The civilized man 
is a trading being. The trader — the man who buys 
and sells — types the brotherhood of the millenium. 

This is wh}^ England is neai'er the States than she 
is to her own colony to-day. She buys more of iis. 
She sells more. The mother and her great (hiughter 
are feeling more strongly their mutual dependence on 
each other. They buy and borrow of each other. Their 
sons and daughters are intermarrying. They visit 
and exchange many courtesies. Their politicians meet 
for consultation and swap services on the stump, and 
we can say, with hands uplifted in praise to God 
who has so ordered it in mercy, that the old wars 
are hushed and the old red lines of division and 
separation drawn by them ai-e fading away forever. 
^o, no! If Canada ever does come into union with 
the States she will not leave England, Imt come 
nigher to her and into a politic and fiscal connection 
more S3^inpathetic with her interests than hers is to- 
day or may ever be while she goes on along the line 
she trails at present, a line which is leading her 
farther and farther from England's trade connection 
and sympathies, as all English manufacturers know 
and say, and making her an alien to those who repre- 
sent the trade and profits of the mother-land. 

For Canada there are but three ]5ossible futures 
— one is to remain as she is, an outlying English 
Colony, hampered in growth, hectored in spirit, 
pinned continually to the edge of i)eril from imperial 
entanglements, drained of her po])ulation by the great 
attractions to the south of her, with which, while she 
remains a colony, she can never successfully com- 



26 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

pete ; oppressed with the burden of debt which, from 
the peculiar construction of her confederated agree- 
ment and the equally pecuhar habits of her politicians, 
she can neither easily carry nor put a stop to its 
further increase; remain subject to unfortunate con- 
ditions, and ever opposed to the pressures of an 
uncertain if not a perilous future; or she can, im- 
pelled by the necessity of bettei'ing her condition, 
seek and obtain release, as she probably could, from 
imperial connection, and oat of the chrysalis of colo- 
nialism burst into the winged embodiment of inde- 
pendency. This possibility has its attractions to all 
generous minds. The birth of a new nationality, if 
it be a happy one, coining in the fullness of time, and 
having adequate heroic causes for its parentage, is a 
result upon which the good wishes of mankind are 
sure to be showered; and such a birth, so caused in 
the case of Canada, would be hailed as an event of 
prime magnitude by all members of the English 
speaking race. If Canada should become a Republic, 
the natural instincts of all Americans would prompt 
them to give her a noble and generous recognition. 
Regarded only from a sentimental point of view we 
should all contemplate her nationalization with pride 
and satisfaction. She would surely receive from us 
all both official and sympathetic recognition. But I 
fail to see how, beyond this point of personal good 
will, she could receive from us of the Republic, either 
the practical assistance she needs, or the commercial 
connection on which, and on which alone she can 
safely base her future industrial expansion. For we 
of the Republic believe in the Monroe Doctrine, not 
only as applied to our sea line, and the parts of the 



CONTINENTAL VNITY. 27 

Continent to the south of us, but we beheve in it with 
equal sincerity and earnestness as jipplied to the 
great division of the Continent to the north of us as 
welL So long' as Canada remains as she has been 
and is to-day, comparatively weak in population, in 
developed resources, and in mihtaiy power, she is not 
a "subject of serious concern to us, scarcely even of 
thought. But once let her begin to assume propor- 
tions of magnitude in these directions; once let us 
discern that her five milUons are soon to become 
twenty millions, and those twenty likely to l^ecome in 
the progress of time forty millions, and the great pro- 
tective principle of our nationality now lying latent 
as regards her existence on our borders, would sud- 
denly come to the surface, and what has been up to 
this and is still only a theory, would on the instant 
become a condition of things, and a condition as 
practical and grave as evei* challenged the attention 
of our Government, or thrust itself as a vital force 
into our politics. I think I do not over-estimate the 
American instinct touchino' the solidaritv of this Con- 
tinent when I declare that we of the Republic shall 
never stand idly by and see a great power built up, 
either on the southern or northern side of us. ]^f apo- 
leon III. sought to establish a throne in Mexico, 
and to place Maximilian, the Austrian, upon it. And 
we, having a domestic matter on our hands, said noth- 
ing for a while; but had he succeeded — well, we 
should have upset his little throne, and shipped his 
soldiers home to him with our compliments, ajid the 
gray and the blue alike would have assisted, with 
equal heartiness and loyalty, in doing it. And this 
we should have done, not because we dislike France, 



28 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

for we do not. We admire her rather, and the grati- 
tude we feel for her aneient alhanee with our fathers 
and the help of it in Revolutionarj times, still flows 
Avarinly in our blood, and lingers like the glow of a 
sweet memory around our hearts. But we should 
have done it beeause we have it as a policy and a set- 
tled conviction that no foreign power, under any 
name or flag, shall ever divide this Continent with 
us, or build itself up either to oiu' worriment or our 
peril. By right of deeds done and blood shed, of 
money spent and progress made; by the right of trials 
numberless bravely borne, of sacrifices beyond count 
freely oftered upon the altar of our national faith, and, 
as we believe, on the altar of God, we do solemnly 
hold, that Ave have a right to live and grow, un- 
checked, unhindered, unimperilled by any other flag 
or power, and that the whole Continent, from gulf to 
gulf, and ocean to ocean, will, must, shall, in the full- 
ness of time, and we hope by the law of benevolent 
attraction, come under the banner of the Republic, 
of which to be a citizen, we hold, is better boon than 
to be a king. 

I do not see, therefore, how we can, with due 
regard to our own ultimate and highest interest and 
to our convictions as Americans, assist Canada to 
commercial, political, and military greatness, by any 
reciprocal mercantile arrangement under the name of 
Reciprocity or any other name, while she remains 
foreign to us in fact, and hostile perhaps in policy 
and spii'it. That reciprocity in exchanges in ])rod- 
ucts would.be of financial advantage to her and us, 
I make no question. That it would help her ten-fold 
more than it could us, I feel able to demonstrate. 



CONTINENTAL UNiTY. 29 

Por it would help her vitally; and she, separated as 
she is from continental connections, is in the grip of 
a vital necessity; while we are not. We do not need 
her vitally; and hence, on the level of dollars and 
cents, the bargain mnst be against us. It is not in 
the wit of man, when the whole scope of the question 
is- considered, to make a bargain that would not be 
one-sided. The conditions of equity are not present. 
For the question, as I have shown, is not one of 
dollars and cents, but of emjDire; not of present 
profits, 1)ut of future domain; not of dicker and 
trade between individuals, but of ]N^ational policy as 
representing the true and lasting interests of the 
Republic. While Canada remains a colony of a non- 
continental power, she must take the chance of a 
colony. She must look to England, which she pre- 
fers, for help, and not to us, to whom she refuses to 
be joined. Should she become an independent Nation 
and set herself up as a rival power, then as a rival 
power she must be treated, and in no other way. If 
she chooses that position, then she herself of her 
own unaided efforts must make it good. Would we 
have aided the French in their mad attempt to build 
up a foreign power in Mexico ? The question answers 
itself. Shall we then help the English or Canadians 
to build up an alien, a rival, a hostile commonwealth 
on the north of us that would split the Continent 
asunder, fix forever a boundary line three thousand 
miles in length between us, and chalk every inch of 
it red with peril ? Is that the heritage we of the 
Kepublic propose by our stupidity or our mercinari- 
ness to leave to our children for a thousand years ? 
^NTo. lS[ot on6 brick shall our hands take to their 



30 continp:ntal unity. 

temple. JN^ot one straw will we give them for the 
making- of their brick. If the}^ foolishly decide to 
build either their own or England's glory apart from, 
and in peril to ns, then must they build alone. The 
most in all reason and conscience they can ask in 
such work, the utmost that the civilized world would 
expect of us is, that we stand by and lift no hand to 
prevent. 

The Canadian question briefly stated then, is this : 
Canada is now unconnected with those powers and 
forces which commercially and politically represent 
the Continent. Being thus unconnected, she sufl'ers. 
Her sufii'erings are approaching a crisis. She is cast- 
ing" around how to make the needed connections with 
us. She interrogates us. Our answer is — no patri- 
otic American, who understands what the interroga- 
tion and answer mean, can make other reply than 
this — Join its! 

How the union can take place, is a matter for 
future consideration. I need not consider it — you 
need not. Canada has not thought herself to that 
point. Until she does, we have nothing to do with 
her or her problems. She is intelligent; let her de- 
cide her own best course for herself. But one thing 
I will say, that I can conceive of no proposition more 
crude or hurtful than the .one some unthoughtful 
person has made, — to purchase her. I can only 
characterize such a proposition as simply shocking. 
Its coarseness will serve, perhaps, one good purpose; 
viz.: to bring out the fine altitudes of the subject. 
I have lived among the Canadians much. I have 
travelled widely through their country . I have eaten 
Avith their poor and feasted with their rich. I know 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. I} 1 

many of their public men, and among them I number 
many friends. As a wliole the Canadian people are 
proud; back of them is a great historv; aliead of 
them, under fair eouditions, is a o-reat futiu'e. This 
they know. This they feel. I need oidy say that 
the gentlemen who now, in wit, in eulture, in wealth, 
in skill, in ])ati'iotism, re])resent (Janada, ai-c not ol' 
the sort that ean be bought. They do not ])ro])ose 
to yell their eountry or assist iii putting it up for sale. 
This applies, frieuds, to all parties and sects, and 
you can build your plans on it as a fact. IT you 
l)uild on other foundation you will only constructs a 
Babel, which, when you shall have pushed it u]j, as 
it would seem, to the skies, will suddenly tumble 
ujjon you, bringing iTiin and confusion as it falls. 
Nor would any arrangement like reci])rocity be 
satisfactory to either country. It would be <mly a 
temporary makeshift; a plan to satisfy the grt^ed of 
traffic, and not to settle a question of Emi)ire. ft 
would have foi- its j)ai'euts nothing worthiei' than 
considerations of dollars and cents, and being thus 
basely born, would live a snarling life and die soon. 
Conunerce is vitally connected wdth the settlement 
ol' this question, but it never can ])e settled on the 
conunercial basis. For our commei'cial relations with 
( 'anadians are hut a [)art, — a very small part, — of 
the question betW'een us; the real one, the gi-eat, grave; 
one is, what is to be their political, their governmental, 
thi^ii' military relations to us, and hence it is vain to 
make any settlement which settles only the jjart, the 
smallest j^art, of the difiicnlty, but leaves the majoi- 
part of the problem unsolved, nay, unconsidered. 
I mav be mistaken, but I believe that Commercial 



32 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

Reciprooity bv itself would greatly retard, if it would 
not prevent the union of Canadians with us of the 
States; because, by relieving- the immediate pressure 
of present necessity, which is upon them, and which 
is caused, and caused only, l)y their non-connection 
with the great centei' of the C^ontinent, it would 
stop them from farther investigation and jjrevent 
them from getting down to the bottom of the difR- 
culty. In the blaze of sudden and vast i-elief their 
eyes would be blinded so that they would not see the 
actual and deep-seated cause of all their troubles, — 
which is jjolitical sepai-ation from the great, rich and 
prosperous nation to the south of them. Were they 
one with us, they would have those financial, indus- 
ti'ial, and commercial connections which would give 
them a growth and expansion in riches and poMci" 
in ten years, which a hundred years have failed to 
bring them, and which another century unaided by 
us Avill fail to bring them. 

Let, therefore, 1 say, the Canadians alone. Give 
them time to sutfer from, and realize the real cause 
of all theii- troul)les. Death is busy there, as here, 
and above the graves of the next decade, Canadian 
thought will move on more easily and swiftly to a 
(dear apprehension of what is wise and adequate. 
Moreover, at pi'csent, (Canada is inflicted with an 
epidemic, or her |joliticians are. 1 i-efer to an epi- 
demic foi' titles. Every }X)litician of the tory party 
there hopes for heaven at last, but he is determined 
to get a ribbon or a garter on the earth whether or 
no. The attem])t to introduce a faded copy of Bi'it- 
ish aristocracy on this Continent is silly of course. 
Bengough, that rival of our own ^N^ast, can i-idicule 



CONTINENTAL UNITY. 33 

it in tho cartoons of his (Irip, as he does most eleverly, 
but Bengoiigh knows that liowevei' silly the attempt 
may be, it is, nevertheless, being- seriously made. 
The Sir Johns, and the Sir. Charleses, the Sir Donalds 
•and (leorges and Alphonses, are getting thicker in 
Canadian society than gilt stars in a stage firmament. 
Why, I have been told that om- old-time fellow citi- 
zen, that embodiment of American pnsh, force and 
pluck they impoi'ted to build their gi'eat railroad for 
them, has recently l)ecome a British subject, and is 
now Sir Van Hoivne! Ye gods! ^Yhat fools we mor- 
tals are! 

InTo, no! we wish none of tliat soi-t of thing on 
this side of the line. If the Canadian |)eo])le like it 
then can they have it to their heai'ts' content. We 
will not tolerate snch folly in this Republic; we 
will not graft snch ancient rot, snch antique mildeA\ 
npon the branches of our budding, blooming, fruitful 
life. No man has title here save snch as manhood 
gets from honest manhood i-(mnd it Ijccanse his head 
is level, his hand oj)en, and his heart sonnd. 

So then, I suggest, that we of the Kepnblic let 
this thing rest whei-e it is a while. Let Canada 
think her problem well ont. Let her learn and 
thoroughly learn that politically she is wrongly 
placed, and cannot i)rospei' as she is. Let her ascer- 
tain that in this Kepnblic, and as an honored and 
proud part of it, she will find her true geographical, 
historical and connnercial connection; that outside 
of such connection she will find a shri\elled foi'tune 
and swarming ])erils. Meanwhile we shonld hold 
onrselves aloof from her, neither heljjing nor hinder- 
ing her; giving here no canse of offence, wishing in 



34 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

our hearts that she was of us; frankly stating our 
position, hoping that she will soon come into politi- 
cal oneness with us, and assiu'ing her of a hearty 
and proud welcome Avhen she shall decide to come. 

But one thing (Canadians must understand, and it' 
would be unwise and uutair for us to conceal it from 
them, and that one thing is this: that this Republic 
will never see a gj'eat power built uj) on this Conti- 
nent, either to the north or south of us, under either 
French or English flags, and take nf) action to pre- 
vent it. Least of all shall we ever assist them to 
Ix'come numerous, I'ich and poAverful, with that end 
()\\ their part in vievV. We invite them cordially to 
share with us the destiny of the Continent; to share 
with us its greatness and its glory, as historically 
they have a right to do and should be proud oi' 
doini»:; but if thev foolishly decline our invitation 
and undertake to rival us and im])eril us by an alien 
development, then must they look foi' no hel}) from 
us, for we shall certainly not hel}) them at all, and 
we shall as certainly oppose their progivss to the 
fullest extent of our i)OAvei". And this we shall do 
in the interest of liberty and of mankind, for he must 
be a fool who thinks that two gi'eat rival Powers 
can exist side by side in peace upon this Continent. 

I know well the wealth of her natural ivsources 
now lying undeveloped. I know Avell that in devel- 
oping those resources our capital and our enterprise 
would find profitable em])ioyment. I kuoAV well the 
extent of her vast domain and its value. I know 
well the conservatism of her character, the pi'oliflc 
vigor of her population, and that she might give to 
the (hivelopment of our connviercial and j)olitical V}fv 



CONTINENTAL l^NTTY. 35 

a most valuable c-ontribution of lii'lpCulness; liut as a 
citizen of the Re))ublie. fbrecastinii^ the future, I 
cannot see how we can, in justice to that future, do 
aught to help iier or recei\c' help Troiii lier, until she 
becomes politically united with us. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I thanlv you for yoiu" 
patient c-ourtesy in heai'ingme. I thank the gentlemen 
by whose kindly invitation and ])id)lic s|)irit J havi- 
been enabled to address you. I have sj)oken in this 
Hall before and on themes as gi-ave as may com- 
mand human attention. But I have ncjver spoken in 
this Hall or elsewhei-e on a theme graver or more 
unpressive in its significance to you and oiu- country 
than the one I have discussed Ixd'ore you to-night. 

Before me as I speak I see th(^ picture of the 
Continent possessed and un[)ossessed spread out be- 
foi'c me. T have traversed it from end to end, from 
shore to shore. T know it. Above yoiu- heads I see 
it lying as John saw Hea\ en in \ision. vast as a 
whole, beautiful as to its parts. I see the grandeur 
of its mountains, the h)veliness of its plains, tlie 
somber gloi-y oi' its forests, the silver gleam of its 
I'ivers, and tlie ocean-Hke spaces of its lakes. I heai' 
the music of its streams, the roar of its water-i'alis, 
and the mui'iuur of its poi)ulations. The sun I'ises 
from between the pillars of the morning, and from 
mid-heaven looks down ui)on it with delight. The 
land he smiles upon, vai'ious in its /ones, i-esponds 
to his greeting with its nudtitucHuous growths. 
And seeing it thus, 1 say, that to me it seems as the 
garden of the Lord, as the prolific center of the 
earth. And o\ er this land of God, this productive 
center of the Avorld. this i-eiuge of alljoppressed peo- 



36 CONTINENTAL UNITY. 

pies, this vast opportunity of Providence and man, 
this sure lodgment and home of liberty, in vicinage 
to the stars whose glory is woven in its folds, touch- 
ing the sky whose light it has borrowed for its own 
illumination, I behold one flag, sole, sovereign, su- 
preme, and under it a third of the human I'ace, living 
prosperous, happy and safe. And seeing all this, 
more than once have I said in my wanderings, and T 
say it now, that that glorious flag must own this Con- 
tinent as a Avhole, and l)eside it there must be waving 
in the slcv above our children's heads, none other. 



Note. — This Address (pamphlet form) can ho obtained of 
newsdealers, or through the mail fi-om the author. Price 25 cents, 
five copies, $1.00. Post-Office address, W. H. II. Mukrav. 
Burlington, Vt., or Parker House. Boston. 



A Brilliant Book. 

DAYLIGHT LAND 



By W. H. H. MURK AY. 

It is tweuty years since the house of Tickuor & Fields pub- 
lished ''Adventures in the Wilderness," that remarkable little 
volume which made Mr. Murray famous and advei'tised the lovelv 
Adirondack Region to the English-speaking world. 

V¥endell Phillips once described Mr. Murray's first venture in 
authorship as ''That little electric book wbich kindled a thousand 
camp-fires and taught a thousand pens how to write of nature." 
There is no question that in that uni pie work the author intro- 
duced one of the happiest literary results ever produced by any 
writer, and set a fashion not only of recreation but also of composi- 
tion. 

It has l)een known among Mr. Murray's intimate fiiends that 
lie intended to begin his professional career as -an author with a 
work drafted on the same lines as was his first Adirondack book, 
and distinguished by the same spirit. In "Daylight Land" the 
public will find the fulfillment of this intention. The growth in 
knowledge of woodcraft and cultured expression which twenty 
years have brought him are evident in this larger volume, but the 
same vividness of description, the same freshness of humor, and 
the same realistic st^de, which made the earlier and smaller volume 
so popular, permeate every page of this larger and nobler woi'k. 
In the chapters entitled "The Capitalist," "The Man in tlie 
Velveteen Jacket," "A Strange Midnight Ride," and "The Great 
Glacier," the reader will find such quaint, racy humoi- and vivid- 
ness of description as it would not be easv to equal in the 
language. ''Daylight Land" is pre-eminently fitted to l)e the Gift 
Book of the season. 

Such a work, so bright, cheerful and literarily perfect, should 
be put before the public m an artistii- form; and the Publishers 
have spared neither pains noi' expense to accomplish such a result. 

Mechanically considered, it is a model of workmanship in book- 
making. The paper on which the book is printed is certainly finer 
than anything before made in this country, and American paper 



leads the world. The type is nobly large and clear. The [)riiit- 
ing was executed at the Riverside Press, under the special charge 
of its most skillful pressman, who points to it with pride as a 
specimen of printing, which, in. delicacy in bringing out the 
illustrations, has never been excelled, even by the old printers. 

The illustrations (one hundred and forty in number) are 
from sketches made on the spot by an artist speeinlly employed by 
the Publishers. 

The color introduced is a complete novelty. The artistic 
part of the book was produced under the supervision of Mr. J. B. 
Millett. which is a sufficient assurance of its excellence, as he has 
the credit of having produced many novelties in bookmaking. 

All anglers and sportsmen ; all campers and tourists ; all 
lovers of nature and of the out-door life ; all who love laughter and 
literary entertainment ; all who seek information of Canada and 
its resources, should look into this peculiarly ha])py combination 
of fun tempered with pathos and sunshine. 

8v(). 350 pages. Unique paper covers, $2.50 ; 

cloth, .p.50; cloth, full gilt, |4.00. 

CUPPLES (^ HURD, PuUishers, Bodou. 

1^. B. — A special edition (Artist Proof), of one 
thousand copies was prepared for the Author as an 
honorarium and is sold on subscription by him to such 
as desire it as an elegant souvenir. As a gift to a 
friend who loves the Out-dooi' Life it is most 
appropriate. 

Forvv-arded per express, free oi' cost to the sub- 
scriber, on receipt of the subscription price, .$5.00. 

Remittance should be made to 

W. H. H. MURRAY. 

Pakkek House, 

BOSTON, MASS. 









^^F j 








